What is the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)?
High on the Chajnantor plateau in the Chilean Andes, the European Southern Observatory (ESO), together with its international partners, is operating the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) — a state-of-the-art telescope to study light from some of the coldest objects in the Universe. This light has wavelengths of around a millimetre, between infrared light and radio waves, and is therefore known as millimetre and submillimetre radiation. ALMA comprises 66 high-precisionantennas, spread over distances of up to 16 kilometres. This global collaboration is the largest ground-based astronomical project in existence.
What is submillimetre astronomy?
Light at these wavelengths comes from vast cold clouds in interstellar space, at temperatures only a few tens of degrees above absolute zero, and from some of the earliest and most distant galaxies in the Universe. Astronomers can use it to study the chemical and physical conditions in molecular clouds — the dense regions of gas and dust where new stars are being born. Often these regions of the Universe are dark and obscured in visible light, but they shine brightly in the millimetre and submillimetre part of the spectrum.
Why build ALMA in the high Andes?
Millimetre and submillimetre radiation opens a window into the enigmatic cold Universe, but the signals from space are heavily absorbed by water vapour in the Earth's atmosphere. Telescopes for this kind of astronomy must be built on high, dry sites, such as the 5000-m high plateau at Chajnantor, one of the highest astronomical observatory sites on Earth.
The ALMA site, some 50 km east of San Pedro de Atacama in northern Chile, is in one of the driest places on Earth. Astronomers find unsurpassed conditions for observing, but they must operate a frontier observatory under very difficult conditions. Chajnantor is more than 750 m higher than the observatories on Mauna Kea, and 2400 m higher than theVLT on Cerro Paranal.
A Tour at the Chajnantor Plateau
Click on the image to take aVirtual Tour in and nearby Chajnantor. |
To visit the ALMA Site, please seeMedia Visits
Why is ALMA an interferometer?
ALMA is a single telescope of revolutionary design, composed initially of 66 high-precision antennas, and operating at wavelengths of 0.32 to 3.6 mm. Its main 12-metre array has fifty antennas, each measuring 12 metres in diameter, which together act as a single telescope — aninterferometer. An additional compact array of four 12-metre and twelve 7-metre antennas complements this. The 66 ALMA antennas can be arranged in different configurations, where the maximum distance between antennas can vary from 150 metres to 16 kilometres, which gives ALMA a powerful variable “zoom”. It is able to probe the Universe at millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths with unprecedented sensitivity and resolution, with a vision up to ten times sharper than theHubble Space Telescope, and complementing images made using theVLT Interferometer.
Science with ALMA
ALMA is the most powerful telescope for observing the cool Universe — molecular gas and dust. ALMA studies the building blocks of stars, planetary systems, galaxies and life itself. By providing scientists with detailed images of stars and planets being born in gas clouds near our Solar System, and detecting distant galaxies forming at the edge of the observable Universe, which we see as they were roughly ten billion years ago, it lets astronomers address some of the deepest questions of our cosmic origins.
ALMA was inaugurated in 2013, but early scientific observations with a partial array began in 2011. See press releaseeso1137 for more information.
ALMA has consistenly produced unique and spectacular results. The fields in which it has delivered its most outstanding results include:
- Providing images of protoplanetary disks such as HL Tau (seeeso1436) which transformed the previously accepted theories about the planetary formation.
- Observing phenomena such as Einstein Rings in extraordinary detail (seeeso1522), providing a level of resolution not acheived by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
- The detection of complex organic molecules — carbon-based, pre-biotic structures, necessary for building life — in distant protoplanetary disks (seeeso1513), comfirming that our Solar System is not unique in potentially fostering life.
For more information on discoveries made with ALMA, explore theScience with ESO Telescopes page.
ALMA is a partnership between ESO, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC) and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI).
ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.
Science goals
Star formation, molecular clouds, early Universe.
More about the ALMA Observatory
- ALMA Antennas
- ALMA Transporters
- ALMA and Interferometry
- ALMA Residencia
- More interesting facts are available on theFAQs page
- Read more about this observatory on theALMA Handout in PDF format
- MoreALMA Image Archive andALMA Video Archive are available in the ESO multimedia archive
- For scientists: for more detailed information, please visit ourtechnical pages
- Visit theALMA Observatory website
The ALMA Planetarium Show
"In search of our Cosmic Origins" is an inspiring show, introducing ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. Read more at theCosmic Origins website.
ALMA Timelapse
View larger timelapseALMA Trailer
Download the ALMA trailer in thevideo archive.
ALMA
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Did you know? Stars form in dense clouds of the interstellar medium, but even in these densest regions the pressure is comparable to the most tenuous vacuum created in a laboratory on Earth. In these clouds, the temperatures are below -200 degrees Celsius. Did you know? ALMA is located in the southern hemisphere, but it is close enough to the Equator to be able to observe 73% of the northern sky, and 87% of the sky overall. Did you know? When astronomers combine the light waves from two telescopes using the principle of interferometry, they can very precisely determine the direction of an object in space. Your ears work in a similar way to localise sounds, by comparing the sound received at the left and right ears. Did you know? The skies over the ESO sites in Chile are so dark that on a clear moonless night it is possible to see your shadow cast by the light of the Milky Way alone. Did you know? There is an Earth-mass of alcohol near the centre of our Milky Way. However, most of it is methanol, and it is diluted 1:1000 with water. Telescopes observing at millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths, like APEX and soon ALMA, are used to detect many other molecules in space. Did you know? The two ALMA transporters each weigh 132.5 tonnes and have twin engines each rated at 500 kW each (at sea level). This gives a total of about 1400 horsepower, and is equivalent to about 20 "Smart Fortwo" cars. |
ALMA on Google Maps
The antenna icons in this image show — in real time — the location of the antennas at the Chajnantor plateau (AOS)
View larger map